


Honesty is the Best Policy {Comic Edition}

by HonesttheCat



Series: Honesty is the Best Policy [1]
Category: Sonic the Hedgehog - All Media Types
Genre: High School, Lots of minor characters - Freeform, Multi, Multiple Points of View, Mystery, lots of relationships, one of the main characters is an oc, scourge has a weird harem
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-26
Updated: 2020-09-27
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:20:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 19,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22413880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HonesttheCat/pseuds/HonesttheCat
Summary: Welcome to the fifth installment in the Honesty is the Best Policy story series! This story is all about the characters, comic characters or otherwise. As the story progresses, I will add in more characters from the Archie and IDM Sonic comics. Each will have some sort of storyline involving them. I am focusing a lot more on the other characters than Honest this time around, and I will be limiting the point-of-view to one character more often.Due to how many characters are in the Sonic comics, and the fact that they will all have their own plots associated with them, this will most likely be the longest of the Honesty is the Best Policy series. So if you like long stories, you will definitely love this one. Otherwise, if this book just doesn't sound like your thing, you can read any of the other Honesty is the Best Policy stories. You can start anywhere really without skipping a beat. 😄Please let me know if you enjoy this story! I also accept any feedback, as I'm not perfect. :3This was originally posted on Wattpad.I am only interested in moving two or three of these stories to this site, so please go to my Wattpad if you're interested in reading the rest: https://wattpad.com/user/HeartstheKitteh
Relationships: Fiona Fox/Scourge the Hedgehog, Manic the Hedgehog/Scourge the Hedgehog, Rosy the Rascal/Scourge the Hedgehog, Shadow the Hedgehog/Sonic the Hedgehog
Series: Honesty is the Best Policy [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1613083
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	1. The Beginning of the Longest Day

**Author's Note:**

> Some background information for those of you starting the series here... Some shady things have been going on ever since Mephiles took over the school. These things include a student council forming out of nowhere that is actively trying to apprehend the main characters for any and everything they do, a darker atmosphere around the school, and Dr. Eggman being on edge.
> 
> Since this story draws a lot of its inspiration from the Sonic comics, I am going to be drawing a lot of art for specific moments in this story. Be sure to check my Deviantart if you're interested in seeing everything I end up creating. https://heartsthekitteh.deviantart.com/gallery/

The faint, red glow of a recently awakened sun filtered through the tightly-knit boughs of a flowering mimosa and illuminated the pair of viridian hedgehogs standing at the front of the school building that morning. One had two pages of paper before him and seemed to be examining a chart of some kind. The other had his back against the sun-warmed brick wall behind them. He was wearing a leather jacket which was odd for the summer time, even in the mornings, but he seemed to be unaffected by the stifling heat. Apparently, he was used to it. This one's eyes were half-lidded, and he was frowning.

The other laughed once he arrived at a certain point in the chart. "The staff here is amazing. Get this. Our first period teacher? Yeah, we share this class together. Dr. Eggman. He went back to get his teaching degree. He wasn't lying at the end of Generations."

While this hedgehog continued to laugh, the other continued to grimace. "Yeah. He was here the year before last," he said, still not opening his eyes.

"Hey, I wasn't here back then. I started showing up to school that January, remember?" The hedgehog holding the papers rolled his eyes. "Here's your schedule back."

The other hedgehog opened his eyes just long enough to retrieve his paper, but something on the page made him stop and start to read it. He had first lunch, so the period before that was third. Advanced Biology. That made sense. He had taken and passed the entrance exams for that class at the end of last year. His acquiring this class wasn't what caught his attention, though. It was who the instructor would be. The biology teacher was-

"Uh, please excuse me!" Scourge exclaimed suddenly. He stood up from the wall and pushed up his red-framed glasses.

Manic tilted his head. "What's up?"

Scourge looked around frantically. "I need to go find someone." His blue eyes came to rest on a scarlet fox coming down the road. Her eyes crossed his for a moment. She had been watching them apparently.

"Hey, Fiona," Scourge said, appearing in front of her. She looked mildly ticked for some reason. Scourge tilted his head.

"Uh, what's up with you?"

Fiona's gaze softened for a moment as she was about to answer him. However, her mouth got only somewhat agape before she then fiercely shut it again. A vein appeared on her forehead before she attempted to speak again.

"What's the deal with you leaving me at the bus stop every morning? I told you to wait like seven times!"

Scourge narrowed his eyes and stuck his hands into his pockets. "I thought you told me to keep my distance from you when we walked."

"But you were running."

"I told you. It's these shoes."

Fiona shook her hand in front of her face, gesturing to him to forget about it. "Oh, just nevermind. What was it you were going to tell me?"

Scourge sighed before speaking. "Oh, yeah. We have a new science teacher this year."

Fiona didn't look very interested.

"It seems to be the Doctor."

Fiona looked confused. "Doctor Eggman?"

"I wish," Scourge said. "He teaches math and robotics. No, I'm talking about the _other_ Doctor."

Fiona looked upset. "No, you're not talking about-"

"Yes, I am," Scourge said. He didn't look upset. He just looked very serious. "We need to talk this over with Honest."

\---

It had turned out to be a glorious start to the first day of school this year. The people taking up residence in Snow's house were taking their time getting to school this morning.

Well, besides Sonic anyway.

You couldn't pay the Fastest Thing Alive to take _anything_ slowly. He had been at the school for awhile now. However, Honest and Shadow arrived at the front of the school only eight minutes before the bell.

Honest turned her head at an unheard sound, and Shadow turned his only after he had seen her do it. Scourge came running down the hill towards them, halting to catch his breath once he had reached them. Fiona could be seen at the crest, watching them and resembling a silent statue.

"Honest! We need to talk!"

The cat being referred to looked to Shadow as if he could possibly know what was going on. He didn't pick up on it and simply stared blankly in her direction.

Scourge and Honest decided they would gather between the buildings to discuss whatever it was. This area was especially dark this time of morning. The only light came from the entrance. The branches overhead completely blocked out the sun, being fully overgrown this time of year. Fiona's silhouette partially obstructed the light from the entrance.

Honest would be lying if she told you there wasn't some awkwardness included with this whole situation. This area's grassy floor had only been graced by two pairs of shoes in the entire history of Honesty is the Best Policy-- hers and Scourge's. And now it wasn't just being violated by one new person's shoes, but by two pairs-- Fiona's and Shadow's. Both were important people to them, albeit in completely different ways, but for some reason they felt almost like strangers here...

Honest shook off the strange feeling in her gut and coughed. "Um... So what did you want to talk about..." Honest hoped the emerald king of air and empty space could sense the unsettledness in the air. "...again?"

Scourge leaned against one of the four or five trees occupying this small space between the main school building and the old gym and regarded both Honest and Shadow rather seriously. "Do either of you have science classes this year?"

Honest's two triangular, orange-tipped ears perked up at this. "Ooh! I have Psychaotology and Shadow has smarty-pants biology!"

Shadow crossed his arms and rolled his eyes. "Advanced Biology," he corrected.

"Psychao- I'm not even going to ask what that is." Scourge looked concerned. "You do know who your teacher is for those classes, right? That Dr. Finitevus is the very same mad scientist who almost systematically brought about the end of the entire Echidna race in the comics-- all in the name of 'science'."

Honest rested a white, gloved hand on the side of her hip. "I'm not going to let him do it again if that's what you're worried about."

Shadow felt awkward and somewhat left-out seeing as though he had no clue who the heck this "Finitevus" character was.

Then, suddenly, another thought came to Honest's head and she straightened up. "You used to work for him though, didn't you? I was thinking that maybe you would be excited, or at the very least, somewhat interested in possibly taking advantage of this."

Scourge acted as if he were appalled at what Honest was suggesting, but it was at this moment that Fiona decided to join in on their conversation.

"You're right. We're both very excited by Dr. Finitevus's sudden admittance into the story. Maybe, with his help, it will become easier for us to achieve our goal of taking back Moebius."

When Fiona said that, a red flag was raised within Shadow's mind.

"Wait, huh?" Everyone began to stare at him in a confused manner. He turned to Honest. "Was that what you were trying to do?"

Honest nodded her head. "Yes, but, well, not exactly. If you read the comics, it will become clearer to you. Um-" Honest turned around and regarded the fox and the hedgehog behind her with a pleading expression. "Will you please step out so I can talk to Shadow?"

Scourge nodded and left with Fiona following moments later. "Do be quick about it, though. It's almost time for first period," the viridian hedgy called.

Honest suddenly sat down in the grass. The dirt and grass were dry, but not so dry that dust would coat her, so there was no way they would get dirty, but this movement was still very much unexpected. Shadow slowly moved downwards to sit in front of her.

Honest's violet eyes glew softly in the dim light. Alright, well, one could argue that wasn't very realistic, but hey-- if you were to draw this scene, would _you_ make her eyes glow? I would. How else are you going to see them?

"Dr. Finitevus is a mad scientist who is obsessed with knowledge. His primary goal is to get Knuckles on a dissection table. Is there anything I left out?"

Shadow thought for a moment. "Well, what should I be wary about when I see him?"

"He is willing to do anything for knowledge, he survived falling off of Angel Island so he's pretty powerful, he has dark chaos abilities-"

"Wait- 'Dark' chaos abilities?"

"You know, like the lightning powers that old, decrepit dude from Chao in Space had. Also, he kind of reminds me of Sonic in that-"

When the bell rang, Honest jumped. Her ears then drooped. "Of course."

She stood up and grabbed her yellow, white polka-dotted backpack, slinging it over her shoulder. Shadow didn't believe in backpacks. He would much rather just carry a binder from class to class.

Honest and Shadow dashed up the front steps and into the school. This was going to be a _long_ first day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story is going to be a doozy. My plan is to thoroughly look into every single major character in the comics (or, well, just those I deem relevant), and then, in the end, develop a general idea of what characters I need to continue to incorporate into my story. I already know I need Scourge, Fiona, and Rosy because their whole characters depend on long-term relationships, but there are other characters I'm very unsure of. The anti-Tails for instance. Or Doc Fin.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading this, and I hope you continue to stick around. I've got a lot of writing to do.


	2. Scourge Helps Others and Learns Respect

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Whether he knows he has or not.

Sitting in his first period class, Scourge was pretending to listen to Eggman babble on and on about all the rules of his class-- no chewing gum, no taking parts (while staring at Tails), no asking for more than ten questions worked (he obviously didn't want anything like what happened in {Forces Edition} to occur a second time), and even no name-calling behind his back (which invoked an eye roll from Sonic)-- but Scourge's mind happened to be in another classroom entirely. The first classroom to the right of the bottom of the stairs in the building up the hill was the biology lab, within which his greatest fear lay dormant.

He had picked up a lot of useful skills while working under Dr. Finitevus in the comics. Some of the Doctor's love of knowledge had rubbed off on him surprisingly. Mostly he was just motivated to read more, to look into psychology (not so much psychaotology, though. That was really just a made-up field), and to hang out around Chaos energy. He didn't get any greener, so don't get too excited, but he did learn to respect it a bit more.

 _Hehe, Scourge learning respect_ , the green king thought, grinning at that last ironic bit of information about his past. Within his mind, Scourge was more of an intellectual composition of who he wanted to be, a character he had created himself in order to hide who he truly was. In truth, he was just another of the millions of versions of Sonic in the multiverse.

"Um, Scourge? Would you like to share with the rest of the class just what is making you smile all dreamily like that when what you're supposed to be doing right now is listening to me recite the rules?"

When everyone in the class turned to him, Scourge's face lit up red. "Oh, uh, I was-"

"...And that's what brings me to our eighty-third rule: no spacing out in my class." The Doctor began to write this rule on the board next to all his other rules, which were beginning to fill up the board even though he had written them all rather microscopically.

Everyone turned away. Scourge recalled all of their expressions. Most of them had neutral expressions. Those people were probably tired of all the rules they just had to sit through. Some people's expressions though were of excitement. Were they expecting him to say something witty and break the monotony of class?

Was that all he was good for? Comedic relief?

Scourge slammed his face down on the desk, his glowing ears the only sign left of his embarrassment.

No. Of course not. His purpose was a lot bigger than that. Next period was study hall. He'd look into it then.

Coming out of the classroom after the bell, he came face-to-face with his dorky duplicate.

Scourge sighed deeply as Sonic tilted his head at him. "So, what were you thinking about in class that made you space out like that?"

"That's none of your business," he told him, attempting to move past the blue idiot.

However, Sonic just stepped in front of him. "Now you're starting to sound a lot like Shadow."

Scourge looked at Sonic in confusion. He was pressing closer to him with the most multi-layered expression in the world but it was mostly... the only word Scourge could come up with was dangerous. He pushed the other hedgehog away.

"Sorry, Blue. I need to get to study hall with time to dry off. It's pouring outside." As he turned to leave, the viridian monarch found himself being called back.

"Wait." Against his better judgement, the green king halted. Spinning around, Scourge saw that Sonic was pulling something out of his spikes. It was an umbrella. That thing fit in there?

"Here, you can have this," he said, extending the purple umbrella out to him.

Scourge looked at him, confused once again. "You're... giving this to me?"

"Sure. I have another one in my locker," Sonic explained.

Scourge took it and opened the door behind him, pressing the release button and having the umbrella open up outside. Rain ran down its sides, but the sidewalk below remained untouched. To Scourge's knowledge, his azure double was still standing behind him. "Thanks," he said.

"No problem!" Sonic exclaimed as his viridian doppelganger left, the door to the outside closing shut behind him.

Scourge began picking his way down the sidewalk, trying to dodge all of the people swarming around him on the way there. Eventually, upon nearing the agriculture building, the crowd began to thin. That's when he spotted Rosy.

Without an umbrella, she was essentially an unobstructed, free-of-access target for the howling winds and rains of the harsh, severe, and unmerciful weather around them to act upon and influence. She _seemed_ unaffected, but was she really? That's when Scourge stepped in. He extended his umbrella to shield them both.

 _Huh, Scourge helping others,_ the green king thought, frowning in a hopeless manner at this rather uncharacteristic action. In his head, Scourge was more of a made-up concept than who he was. A character he had created himself in order to hide who he truly was, which was just another of the millions of versions of Sonic in the multiverse.

But... was this him or Scourge acting?

Rosy looked up at him and smiled thankfully, her cheeks, well, rosy. Seeing such vivid color in the otherwise monochrome atmosphere of a rainy morning was dramatic in a sense. Maybe that was why Scourge then blushed instinctively. Or, perhaps it was due to her reaction aligning so well with the ideals of romanticism, which was one of Scourge's most favorite intellectual movements.

"What class do you have next?"

"Study hall."  
"Me, too."

Whatever the cause of his sudden build-up of emotion was, it was making Scourge feel limitlessly unsettled. However, he forced it down as they walked to class.

Scourge and Rosy entered the class, and Scourge's first move was to visit the teacher's desk. He wanted to get to the library as soon as possible. However, the desk was vacant. The bell would ring any moment now, and yet the teacher still hadn't shown up.

A crocodile then stuck his head into the room.

The source of the upcoming joke was well-known to Scourge.

"Phew! I finally found the computer room!"

Well, it was _a_ computer room. The croc strode across the room and took a seat at his desk. As soon as his bottom had hit the cushion of the chair, the bell rang. He regarded the two hedgehogs before him. "You guys need something?"

"The library," Scourge told him, laying his hands on the desk. "I wanna go there for study hall."  
Vector didn't give his answer right away. He first turned to Rosy.  
"Oh! Oh! I wanna go to the library, too!"

Scourge looked at her with a confused expression. How many times would he be baffled today? "Why do _you_ want to go to the library?"

"Because," Rosy told him. "I want to read the encyclopedias."

That didn't make sense to Scourge, but he just decided to roll with it.

"Okay, you can come."

He then turned back to Vector to await _his_ answer.

The green lizard thought about it a moment and then an idea flashed into his mind.

"How about the whole _class_ visit the library?" The viridian hedgy opened his mouth. Without waiting for Scourge to object, Vector told everybody that they were going. He then closed his mouth and shook his head hopelessly.

Now in the library, Scourge was trying desperately to look through the stack of books he had gathered from the shelves of the nonfiction section, but the library was utter chaos around him. For some reason the librarian, the fastidious beaver from Sonic Boom, was off-duty this period, so everyone was completely abandoning the whisper-only rule and running around like it was recess hour. What were they, fourth-graders?

Scourge's ears stood up straight as he began to hear a conversation going on behind him.

"I'm still scared, Honest. This new teacher, from what you've told me, sounds like a big time villain. Like, Dr. Eggman-style. Shouldn't some more precautions be taken other than 'don't volunteer for a class demonstration'?"

"Don't give him any rings, protect Knuckles... Most of it is just overall paranoia." Scourge turned around to see what was going on. Honest and Shadow were sitting at a table facing the opposite direction. Shadow was sitting in the chair on the right with his hands resting in his lap while Honest sat on her knees in the left chair backwards, looking rather bemused while Shadow sweated. "And I don't think you should have any problem with the paranoia part."

Scourge waved his arm and both the cat and the striped hedgehog turned around. Honest's expression lost its comical aspect as she opened her mouth in a large smile. She then leapt out of her chair and scrambled towards him. Shadow was irritated to find out that Honest considered the green recolor's request to communicate an urgency, but he suppressed the urge to call her out as he stomped after her.

"I have Doctor Finitevus _next_ ," Scourge told them, attempting to stress to them just how urgent his situation was.

"I do, too," Shadow told him, lifting his head to stare at him with his bright red eyes. The fur stood up on Scourge's neck just then. Woah. The dude looked _demonic_!

"Oh! So you guys will team up, right?" Honest asked, excitedly shoving the two together. "That's perfect! Please treat each other well then, okay?"

"Wait, what?" Scourge asked, seeming to be completely against this idea.

Shadow just kept staring at him, not revealing anything specific.

Now was a pretty fitting time for Honesty.

"Let me repeat. You're _going_ to work together on this. This is a matter of your guys' personal safety. Protect Shadow for me. He's a newbie. You always need to look out for newbies," Honest told Scourge sternly.

 _Maybe it_ would _be best for me to stick with Stripes,_ Scourge thought. When he looked back up at Honest, she was beaming as if to agree with his thoughts.

"If you help acquaint Shadow with Dr. Finitevus, he'll protect you physically in exchange. He can be your bodyguard in a sense." Shadow then looked at Honest with a vein visible on his forehead. "I said 'in a sense'," she added callously, shrugging.

"A-Alright," Scourge answered, intending to follow this up with 'just so he can protect me', but he changed his response at the last second. "Since this _is_ a matter of Stripes' personal safety."

Honest gave him a concerned look immediately afterwards. "It's for your safety, too. You're looking out for each other." When she saw Shadow's vein attempting to reveal itself again, Honest took a deep breath. "And it's Stripes's, not Stripes'. It's a proper noun. Same thing with Knuckles's. If you were talking about a couple of knuckles possessing something, _then_ it would be knuckles'."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading this chapter, and I hope you like the new format! Less of Honest's point of view and more of everyone else's. The next chapter will be mostly in Scourge's point of view. And, it's in real-time-- not skipping around from event to event. I'm hoping this style will enable you to get much more into the story much quicker.


	3. Introductions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Introductions are three chapters in? What kind of story is this?

The library was on the first floor of the building with the math and language classes, a floor it shared with the main office and Mephiles's office, both of which were located at the front, the side of the building facing the road. Dr. Finitevus's room was in another building, at the very far end down a set of stairs.

When the bell signalling the end of second period rang, Scourge and Shadow left their building and made their way towards this one. The two buildings were connected by a long sidewalk. The air felt steamy and thick this morning, so they wanted to get inside as quick as possible so as to avoid getting too hot before class.

However, as soon as they were safely indoors, both their speeds slowed dramatically. It was as if the threat of being tardy was no longer existent. Neither of them wanted to face their biology teacher it seemed.

Scourge was the first to notice this and pursed his lips in thought before making his discovery and stretching that same pair of lips into a puzzled frown instead.

"You're afraid, aren't you?" A hop and a step brought him around to face Shadow and block his path. The striped rodent was surprised and reacted by crossing his arms loosely and adjusting his expression accordingly. "All it took was a general, verbal description from Honest, and you're terrified, huh?"

Shadow chose to take this personally. With his arms now down at his sides, the shadowy hedgerat stood his ground behind a barrier he had raised countless times before.

"I'm not scared; I just don't know what I'm up against." His gaze firmly locked on his opponent, Shadow asked a question: "It makes sense for someone to be wary of the unknown, right?"

Finding himself now confronted by steel-reinforced reason, Scourge shifted his dispirited gaze towards the tile flooring of the hallway.

Acting as if he had won something, Shadow hmphed triumphantly and pushed past the perplexedly puzzled pineapple before him, intending to face his fears and get to class on time whether Scourge did or not.

"Hello. Third row, third chair."

Scourge followed Shadow into the classroom slowly. The not-so-noble king noticed that a lot of the students were there already and occupying most of the seats. Scourge kept his eyes primarily on the teacher, though.

Upon seeing Shadow, Dr. Finitevus gave a warm smile and greeted him. "Good morning. Are you here for Biology?"

The dark hedgehog just nodded. Scourge sighed inwardly. Apparently Shadow had gotten over the fear he had felt earlier and was now just acting cool.

"You can take a seat there in the middle. We'll get everybody introduced once the bell rings." When Shadow moved away, Scourge was revealed.

"Y-You remember me, don't you?"

A toothy grin spread across the doctor's mouth. "Why of course. You're the Anti-Sonic and used-to-be ruler of Moebius. I can't forget you."

Scourge gritted his triangular teeth. "My name's _Scourge_."

"Oh, right." Dr. Finitevus kept smiling and pointed towards Shadow as he took one of the centermost desks on that side of the room. "Go join your friend before the bell rings so we can begin."

Scourge made his way towards Shadow begrudgingly and sat at the desk in the middle of that row beside him. The whole time he was walking, Scourge had this incredibly strong feeling that somebody was watching him-- like his or her gaze was boring holes into the back of his head. He was trying desperately to shake it off when the bell rang and Doctor Fin began to take his place at the front of the room.

"Alright, students," the demented doctor said, clasping his hands together as if doing an impression of every other teacher he had seen in his life. "Starting near the door and working our way down the rows, I want everybody to introduce themselves."

Suddenly a bunch of them started saying things like "We already know each other!" and "What's the point?", but that's when Finitevus stopped them.

"I don't know most of _you_ ," was his excuse. "Are you just going to put me in the dark all year?" When everyone only proceeded to stare at him blankly, Dr. Finitevus sighed. "Nearest the door?"

Honey coughed and stood up.

"My name is Honey the Cat. I am the sole owner and proprietor of Honey Fashion and manager and co-owner of Café Rouge."

"I never said you were co-owner," came the audible whisper of Rouge. She was sitting diagonally from Scourge. However, she was sitting right next to Honey, so the golden cat heard her clearly. She simply stuck her tongue out at Rouge and exclaimed, "Sorry!"

"I see. Well, I'm sure you'll have a splendid year in a class alongside your friends and... business partners."

Next, when their particularly sketchy new teacher coughed, almost everyone in the class jumped sky-high with fright. Dr. Finitevus didn't seem to notice, however.

"Alright, then. Going this way-" He motioned with both his arms to his right and their left. "Please continue introducing yourselves."

Next was Rouge. She stood up.

"My name is Rouge the Bat. I am the _sole_ owner of Rouge's Café, and also the sole owner of Club Rouge, which is right next door. I work as a spy for GUN, and I also do a fair bit of treasure hunting in my spare time."

"Interesting," the doctor said, drumming his fingers along the side of his cranium. Immediately everyone began to sweat profusely, knowing well what this meant. However, seemingly no evil plots were devised and he coughed again, signally for them to move on.

Next, a familiar pink blob stood up in front of Shadow, causing Scourge to sink down in his seat to hide. That was the gaze he felt earlier.

"Hello, my name is Rosy. Actually, I'm the anti-Amy, but everyone just calls me that in order to tell me and my Prime equivalent apart," the maniacal fuschia rodent exclaimed happily.

Finitevus nodded. "What are your hobbies?"

"Hobbies?" Rosy tilted her head as if unfamiliar with the meaning of that particular word.

"Yeah," the doctor clarified. "You know, things you do in your spare time for enjoyment."

"I like to... smash stuff?" Rosy laughed nervously, moving a bit to show to others how silly she thought his question was. "I'm not sure what kind of answer you expect."

"That'll work," he told her. "I didn't exactly expect you to have a normal hobby or anything. Next."

Rosy sighed and sat back down. The character to her left stood up.

"I'm Knuckles the Echidna, guardian of the Master Emerald, and... you literally murdered my father!"

Doctor Finitevus put a hand to his mouth and smiled. "Oh, yeah. I did do that, didn't I?"  
Just in case you readers haven't read the Archie comics, here's that scene:

Knuckles just twiddled his thumbs and stared at them as if they had just done something surprisingly shameless. "Uh, yeah, and... It was kinda scarring. I mean, even someone looking in might have been scarred by that-"

"Alright, next row. Starting with Scourge and going towards the door."

Scourge blew out an enormous puff of air and angrily pushed up from his desk. "I'm Scourge the Hedgehog. Sonic is forcing me to go to school here and threatening me with life in prison if I don't," he told the class, his eyes firmly shut. When he opened his eyes, Finitevus was nodding his head in understanding.

"Sonic did that to you? That doesn't seem very heroic of him," he said.

"Oh, no. It's very heroic. I was in the wrong, I'm sure," he said, steam puffing from his head. "I always am."

Still nodding his head, rather in actual earnesty or just to aggravate him Scourge did not know, Doc Fin rested both of his arms on the podium again. "What are your hobbies?"

Scourge bit his lip. "Uh... I keep to myself mostly..."  
"Really? I thought you and Fiona were plotting to take back your home dimension."

The mad doctor might just have been, well, going mad, but he thought for a second that he saw Scourge's face light up red when he said that. He tilted his head in wonder.

"Uh, yeah. That's what I meant. Anyway, my turn's over. Everyone here already knows me anyway, so you can just move on..."

"Sure. Next."

And just like that the attention was shifted away from him. He blinked in surprise before turning expectantly to his right, where Shadow was rising from the desk beside him.

"My name is Shadow the Hedgehog. I am the Ultimate Lifeform created under the codename of Project Shadow by the late Professor Gerald Robotnik as a cure for his granddaughter's disease. I also am part alien, or... something... and I work as an agent for GUN, and... well, there's a lot to tell, actually. Go play my game."

"Your hobbies?"  
He sighed and rolled his eyes. "I have a pet cat that shapeshifts... and I'm caring for my son from the future... and I've been reading a lot lately. I also consider myself a pro at Go Fish." He turned up his nose as if he were proud of that Go Fish part.

"Thanks for sharing, Shadow. Next, please." The person sitting on the other side of Shadow stood up. Scourge didn't notice who it was right away due to him busily drumming his fingers on the side of his head as if his life depended on it. Is he okay?

"I am Infinite."

Finitevus looked just as confused as he had been during Scourge's turn. "You're... Infinite?"

"Yeah," Infinite told him, looking rather bored. The only way you could surmise this was in the way he slouched in his chair and the way his one eye was half-lidded as he did this.

"Any... hobbies?"

"Plotting my revenge on this guy," he told the teacher, gesturing to the confused hedgehog beside him.

"Look, I'm sorry I called you weak."  
"That's not it. Not... _completely_ it anyway." Infinite sighed and crossed his arms. "It's funny. I am who I am because of you, but you don't remember a thing. I suppose that's only right, though. That just means that the old me was too weak and pathetic to even warrant a memory. I was completely forgettable. Now, however, things have come full circle. Now _you_ are the worthless bug whose life will be stomped out with no memory of it happening. 'Who's Shadow? Must not have been too important if I've forgotten about him'."

Shadow sunk into his seat with a furrowed brow.

"My name is Julie-Su. Honest's not allowing me to reveal too much right now, but I'm Knuckles's girlfriend," the purple echidna sitting at the end of the row said. She had her eyes cut at Doc Fin as if she were mad at him.

(Issue #09 of Sonic Universe)

He seemed curious as he asked, "What do you like to do in your free time?"

Julie-Su, her eyes still locked on the teacher, answered, "Help Knuckles guard the emerald." Somehow her gaze was able to harden even more. "From _you_."  
"For fun? That sounds like business to me," the doctor told her.

"My hobby _is_ my business," she said. Apparently she was serious about that.

"If you don't mind me saying this, that seems kind of boring," he said.

"'Tiring' is a better word," she replied, smiling slightly. "But sometimes it can be very fulfilling."

Doc Finitevus frowned and rolled his eyes. "Okay... Next."

The student behind her stood up and waved, beaming. "I'm Silver the Hedgehog! I'm Shadow's son from the future, and I have psychokinetic powers! Watch!" The silver hedgehog struck a pose and reached out with this hands. They started to glow blue and so did all the desks in the room. Everybody started spinning in the air except for Honey seeing as though her desk was decrepit and the chair had been detached from the desk long ago. Instead, she just sat there and looked around confoundedly.

"Hey, put those down!" Finitevus shouted.

"Sorry!" Silver exclaimed, shutting his eyes in an ashamed manner and slowly setting all the desks and their passengers down. The glow left them all and Silver's spines lost their lift as he sat down and laid his hands atop his desk.

"Who are you on the end?" Vector and Mighty looked disappointed as Finitevus began to point at the individual sitting on the other end of the row.

"M-Me?" the purple cat blinked and pointed at herself. "I'm Blaze the Cat, guardian of the Sol emeralds, interdimensional traveller, and Silver's best friend."

"Hey, what about me and Mighty? Don't we get to introduce ourselves?" Vector asked, upset.

The doctor-teacher frowned. "I already know you two and besides-- it's nearly time to leave."

(Issue #11 of Sonic Universe)

He glanced up at the clock on the wall and sighed, turning to face the students once more. "The bell's about to ring. Please be prepared to leave once it does."

Everyone was standing around talking in no time. The mad doctor didn't seem to care, however. He was too busy writing down things he had observed in some notebook on his desk.

Honey had her bag slung around her shoulder as she spoke with Vector with her arms crossed. "I don't remember you. Aren't you the 'computer room' guy?"  
The crocodile laughed. "Yes, I am. I'm also the leader and head honcho of the Chaotix Detective Agency. People tell me I'm good at what I do."

Honey pouted her lips in thought. "You are? Interesting. I'll be sure to look you up if there's a mystery I need solved."

"Wait... you said you were a fashion designer, right?"

Honey nodded seriously. "Yeah."

To Vector, this meant dollar signs.

"Okay, then! Here, I'll give you my number so my team and I can be on-call."

While the gator and the feline swapped numbers, Shadow was chasing Silver around the room, who possessed Shadow's only Chaos emerald, holding it out in front of him with his psychokinesis as he ran.

"Give that back! I need that to use Chaos Control! >n<" Shadow protested, dodging desks as he tried to retrieve the gem which Silver had stolen from him when he wasn't looking.

Scourge had his head supported by his arm while he was in deep thought. Rosy noticed this behavior and sat in the chair in front of him, facing backwards and watching him concernedly. Scourge was obviously in a different dimension as he didn't even react in extreme terror upon seeing her.

"Scourgey? You okay?" she asked quietly. When Scourge didn't respond, his fuschia worshipper rested her chin on his desk and sighed.

Shadow was afraid that if he activated his rocket shoes, he would leave dark burn marks on Doctor Finitevus's tile flooring. Instead, Shadow just lunged at Silver and tackled him to the ground. It was then from there that he wrestled the Emerald that the dorky time traveller had stolen away from him and put it back in his spines where it was safe. Then the bell rang.


	4. Pizza with a Side of Disaster

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Those giant gumballs in the image are a crowd of Sonic characters. Also, this chapter's title sounds like one of the bad jokes only Sonic Colors could tell and get away with.

"So~ What happened in Biology?" Honest asked Shadow once they had met up for lunch outside the main building, near the base of the stairs leading from the second floor English hallways.

"Finitevus had the students all introduce themselves," Shadow reported, stuffing his mouth with some gummies Scourge had given him.

"Seems pretty normal," Honest told him, grinning.

Shadow didn't notice. "Yeah, well, nothing is ever what it seems over in 'Sonic Land'."

Suddenly the same echidna whose classroom Shadow had just left began to separate from the crowd, grasping some sheets of notebook paper within his left hand.

"Here," he said, extending the sheets to Honest. "What I've observed so far."

Doc Fin tipped an imaginary hat to Shadow and fused himself with the crowd once again.

Once the mad scientist had left, Shadow put a hand to his forehead in shame. "Why can't the plots of these stories involve something at least slightly normal?"

Honest was scanning through the words on one of the pages he had given her. "You know there's no fun in that..." Her finger moved down the page until she suddenly jabbed the paper. "Ha! 'My hobby _is_ my business'?? That's hilarious! And _sooo_ Julie-Su!"

They started walking down the sidewalk. There was no point to just standing there and being crowded off into the grass. "Where did Julie-Su come from, anyway? ...And Finitevus too for that matter."

"Oh, well..." Honest's ears lowered as she thought with a finger to her cheek. "Doc Fin got a job as a teacher to get close to Knuckles, and Julie-Su, well... traded places with Ray."  
"'With Ray'?" Shadow repeated after her as if making sure he had heard right.

"Yeah," Honest told him. "Julie-Su has been guarding ME in Knuckles's stead all this time. When I started {Comic Edition}, I asked her to join my story and let Ray switch with her."  
"But Ray's just a kid. How is he going to protect the Master Emerald all by himself?"

"Uh..." Honest flapped her hand as if trying to get rid of a bad odor. "He isn't. But that's for a future chapter. Remember, this story is going to delve super deep into the Sonic Universe and be the longest story I've written yet. So... we need to cover Angel Island eventually. It can be an... extended vacation. And murder mystery. And family get together. And... well, anything, really. But it _will_ be covered. Eventually." Even outside among so much noise, the atmosphere was able to dip just enough that Honest had to take action. "But right now I'm starving. So let's go eat!!" Honest grabbed the dark hedgy's wrist and wretched him towards the building.

"What's the perfect thing to eat on a first day?" Honest was visiting each line and inspecting the choices.

"Uh, something delicious?" Shadow asked.

"Well, of course it's gotta be delicious. But I mean... what _theme_ should I try to go for?" Honest got a little too close to a purple hedgehog girl's tray while trying to find a line to go to, which resulted in her getting a very angry glare shot her way as she did so.

Shadow's eyes became slate voids as he watched from a safe distance. "A 'theme'? Good Chaos, Honest. Just get something to eat already."

Honest seemed to have listened for a second as she finally went to a line, setting down her tray with eyes firmly closed. "Okay-" Then Shadow realized she hadn't listened at all. "I'll eat pizza."

Shadow got a few slices, too. "Fine. Then that's what I'm going with as well."

When the two finally made it to the table they sat at last year, they found everyone else sitting there, also. Honest placed her tray on the table and sat beside Rosy.

"So, you think you've gotten better at controlling yourself this year?" Honest asked, smiling a cat smile and gripping the edge of the table.

Rosy set down her fork. "Oh, yes! I'm really confident this year in my ability to contro- o- ol..." Rosy began to focus on something in the distance.

"What is it?" Honest asked, frightened. She turned her head, and then Rosy suddenly stood up in her chair and jumped clear over Honest to get to whatever it was.

"Scourgey!" Rosy pulled out her hammer as her hi-tops made contact with the tile flooring of the cafeteria. That's when Honest saw a familiar green pincushion hiding behind a column. When he heard Rosy's yelling, he poked his head out from behind it and took off towards the doors a distance away.

"Well, so much for that confidence she said she had," Honest said under her breath. Shadow had sat in the seat next to her and focused on eating his slice of pepperoni pizza. He was sitting on the other side of Honest next to Rouge as the bat lady did something on her phone. She didn't have anything besides a bottle of water. She often didn't because she used the next period as her lunch period. She worked in the library that period and it was so boring that she brought her lunch there to eat while she stood there and checked books in for forty-five minutes.

"Scourge and I were talking about the AP biology class," Rouge told him calmly, looking over at the shadowy hedgy as she spoke.

"You still wanna talk to him?" Honest asked, sounding surprised.

"Oh, uh... yeah," Rouge answered, drumming her fingertips on the surface of the table. "I know he's a pretty cruddy guy, but when he tells me something, I don't immediately tune him out. That would be rude." With a sip of her water, the female spy turned back to Shadow.

"He says that Finitevus must be plotting something against him. Personally I think Finitevus is rounding everyoneup in order to exterminate them all."

"Pfft." Shadow blew air out through his mouth and put down the slice of pizza he had been about to bite another time. "I genuinely believe he isn't. I mean, just think about it for a second. If he really was gearing for exterminating all of his students in the end, why isn't Sonic a part of the class?"

"Because Doc Finitevus didn't choose his students. Mephiles did. Besides. Sonic couldn't make it one day in advanced biology. He's way too dim-witted," Honest retorted, laying her head in her palm and her arm on the table.

Then Honest's eyes widened when she saw Shadow's fur began to bristle as he stared at something behind her. He resembled an angry cat. Honest said "what" and slowly turned her head.

"Doctor Finitevus? You don't mean that creepy echidna scientist that showed up suddenly while I was floating around in space for a year in the comics, do you? He's a teacher?"

Honest jumped. Sonic had taken Rosy's seat at some point while she wasn't looking.

"Y-Yeah," Honest said, realising after a while that he was talking to her. "Rouge says Scourge thinks he's going to try and take out everyone in his third period advanced biology class."

"Oh, well then sayounara, eggheads."

"You mean you're not going to try and save some poor, innocent students just because you think they're smart?" Rouge asked, leaning forward to see around the still slightly bristling Shadow.

"Oh, I'll save them... but who _are_ they exactly?"

"Well, let's see," Honest said, beginning to count off her fingers. "Knuckles, Scourge, Shadow-"

"Wait, Shadow's in danger?" Sonic turned to the hedgy in question. Shadow looked confused. "But he's right here."

"Technically he's not in danger," Honest said, suddenly remembering what they were talking about.

"Huh," Sonic said. Then he perked up, seeming to forget. "Wait, Knuckles is in there? Not to be nice or anything, but he's not really what I would consider an egghead."

This, Honest had to admit, bothered her. Finitevus and Knuckles... Well, Knuckles and Julie-Su might be who she needs in order to start something with Scourge, Fiona, and Finitevus. She finished her first slice of pizza while thinking.

"Can I have that?"

Honest looked up when Sonic poked a finger at her plate, on which sat a pizza crust.

"..." When she saw the stars in Sonic's eyes, she picked it up and threw it at him. He fumbled with it a while before catching it and sticking it in his mouth.

"Hey, where's Amy?" Looking behind them, the group watched as Akane the Cat approached. She was a cat that Honest adopted that ended up being a cat girl. She was orange, had a short tail and long hair, and wore a red dress. She also had one brown stripe on her left ear and blue eyes, the latter of which looked concerned as she asked her question in a shaky voice. Everyone shook their heads, signalling that they too had no clue as to where Amy was either. Akane still looked worried as she took a seat on the other side of Rouge.

"Here I am!"

Amy suddenly jumped into the seat beside Sonic. His eyes went wide. _That's what happens when you don't guard the seat next to you,_ Honest thought, sighing. Amy didn't seem to have food as she just grasped Sonic tightly, making him almost choke on Honest's pizza crust. Honest quickly offered him her chocolate milk. It might've just saved his life as he quit hacking up crumbs shortly after he drank that. Amy was completely oblivious. Honest looked at her now empty milk box sadly.

"Guess what I did, Sonikku!" the pink hedge-rat exclaimed, her eyes firmly shut and hearts flying all around her.

"What...?" he asked, not sure he wanted to know.

"I just saved your green double's life! I'm sure you're very proud of me since he _is_ your doppelganger."

"Huh? What do you mean?" Rouge asked, leaning over the table again but this time in intrigue rather than disappointment.

"Who was it? The biology teacher?" Honest asked her.

"Nope!" Amy answered happily. "It was Fiona! She was about to strangle him and I smashed her into jelly. You're welcome!"

"I guess she's cruel to everyone," Sonic said, sighing. He opened his eyes and beamed. "Thanks, Amy!"

Amy looked speechless with her mouth open.

"Uh, Amy? Are you okay-"

Suddenly Amy grabbed him again. "You said 'thanks'? Oh, you're so kind, Sonikku!" And yet more choking.

Sonic started grasping all around him, but Honest just shook her head. She didn't have any more milk. Sonic's face was starting to turn bluer than normal. That's when someone decided to react.

Suddenly Amy was doused in water and stopped choking him, falling out of her seat completely.

Sonic regained oxygen and looked around, startled. Shadow was standing there behind them with an empty bottle of water. No one had even seen him get up. Rouge even looked at her hand and, upon seeing that her water was gone, started spouting steam from her ears. She looked fiercely at Shadow. He just took off to get her another bottle from the kitchen.

"Are you okay, Amy?" Rouge asked, coming around to help her out. Amy now sat up in the floor and started to wipe water out of her eyes.

"Yeah, I'm okay," Amy said despite being most certainly not okay. She looked up at Sonic who had been looking at her in wonder. "Sorry, Sonic. I took it too far again, didn't I?"

"Uh, yeah," he said, narrowing his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> O.O; Well, lunch was a disaster. AGAIN... Well, at least you can tell this is still Honesty is the Best Policy. What's a chapter of HBP without disaster? Anyway, thank you all for reading this story. I will continue to publish more chapters of it. Well, I would continue to publish them with or without support from the readers. That's what I've been doing for the past six years anyway...
> 
> "It ain't much, but it's Honest work."


	5. In the AM

The white disk that was the moon rose above the treetops that night, illuminating the outline of a hedgehog as he sat perched in one of those trees, his legs dangling from the branch he was sitting on.

The night was always the same. It was August, so the air was thick and Shadow's muzzle was damp as if he had been out there for hours. However, he had only been out there for a few minutes. It was just that damp out. Shadow's eyes felt heavy as he felt sleep nearly overwhelm him.

It all felt the same as if the days and years were just repeating over and over. It was a radical theory, but color sounded radical to a blind man. Didn't Sonic have a habit of sitting in odd places like on roofs and trees? What was Shadow doing there? Shadow felt his motives were unimportant.

"Woah, hey! What are you doing in my tree?"

Out of _all_ of the trees in _all_ of the forest, Shadow had to choose the one Sonic preferred to sit in. Shadow sighed and rolled his eyes.

"Oh, my bad. I didn't see your name on it."

Sonic swung on the branch above and inserted himself between Shadow and the tree's trunk.

"Ah, no. It's fine. But that gives me an idea on how to mark it next time."

It was really unnecessary to mention that Sonic was smiling as he did and said all this. Shadow often wondered if this expression of his was plastered on. His heart feared any other explanation. That was also a radical theory, but a comforting one.

Shadow felt awkward and swung his head around to continue staring into the leafy abyss below them. That was probably a steep ravine. Maybe there was a cave or an old mining camp down there. Then again, though, it could just be thick trees.

Sonic tilted his head and frowned, noticing his discomfort. "But really, what are you doing here?"

"Wasting time before bed," was his quick reply. Shadow yawned and wiped the tiredness from his eyes with his fingers.

"Looks like you have no need for wasting time," Sonic told him, slowly beginning to smile again. "Your eyes are watering you're so tired." The blue speedster pointed at him.

Shadow turned around and sure enough, his scarlet eyes were saturated with tears. "I don't really get tired, though. I just run out of energy."

"That's the same thing," Sonic pointed out once more. Shadow started rubbing his eyes again. "We should head back inside. It's nearly eleven, and everybody's already out like a light for the most part."

A puff of air and Shadow begrudgingly agreed. "Fine."

Walking past a row of hedges, the hedge _hogs_ could hear frogs and insects-- the sounds of night. Here in the grass, mosquitos were everywhere, circling their heads and ankles. The light of the moon illuminated their path-- most everything else was swallowed up by darkness.

After entering the house, the sounds, the bugs, and the dark went away and instead were replaced with balmy silence, cool air, and the glow of a lamp.

The two hedgies tried to be extremely quiet and careful as they walked towards their rooms-- Sonic's being right at the top of the stairs and Shadow's being further down. The soft carpet perfectly muffled Shadow's usual heavy, metallic footsteps as he crept passed all the occupied rooms to get to his. Once there though, Shadow enjoyed a restful sleep.

\---

Eyes flying open at the sound of a rather noisy bird by his window, Shadow found the early morning atmosphere saturated with yet another sound-- singing. It was quiet but still entirely audible even with him being entire rooms away from the source of it. Shadow kicked the thin sheet off of himself and crawled out of bed.

Should Shadow get an early start on breakfast, continue the novel he was reading, or play a game like SA2 or Shadow the Hedgehog? A sudden vision of a drooling and famished Honest helped him make that decision, and Shadow made his way downstairs.

Cutting up peppers to put in the eggs, Shadow started to lose himself. The smell of everything was dizzying. The stove had warmed the whole room. It wasn't entirely uncomfortable yet, nor borderline stifling, but that might have simply been due to how out-of-it he was feeling just then.

"How's it coming along?"

Shadow spun around to see Sonic at the other side of the island, perched on a stool and leaning on his hand.

"The breakfast, I mean."

The Ultimate Lifeform cut his eyes at his azure rival and turned back around, resuming chopping the red and green peppers on the bamboo cutting board.

"Oh, it's coming along."

When Shadow brushed the pepper slices off the cutting board and into the eggs, the juices of the peppers rolled down the sides of the egg mass in the center and onto the surface of the skillet, inciting a small sizzling sound.

"That smells really good," Shadow heard Sonic say behind him.

"It's just peppers and eggs..."

"Do you need help?"

Sonic sounded concerned for him. "No, thank you. I can manage."

"Oh, well that's fine. Besides, I wouldn't look half as attractive as you look doing it."

Shadow's ears burned, and he tightened his grip on the skillet handle as he worked to stir the egg a bit with his spatula.

"Go wake the others," he said sternly. "It'll be ready any moment now."

Sonic nodded and grinned despite Shadow not being able to see him and took off.

In no time at all, Shadow turned and was faced with all the hungry residents of the house.

The blond cat girl's eyes were blank and her mouth agape as she gripped her utensils so firmly that they may, at any moment, shoot out of her hands and lodge themselves in the wood ceiling above. When she saw the food, her violet eyes somehow stretched further and drool began to drizzle down her chin.

The blonde's metabolism must work at an unbelievable rate. Honest ate so much the previous night that she literally passed out on the couch, but the very next morning she's starving again... So much so that she was losing control of her mouth's saliva production.

When Shadow placed the plate in front of her, the feline made a grateful face and sank her teeth into the eggs and peppers he had prepared. The black hedgehog merely rolled his eyes and handed a plate to the white hedgehog girl beside her. Dina eyed the eggs suspiciously from behind her sole large, pink bang as if they were planning something before stabbing her fork into them and bringing what little she had stabbed up to her eyes to inspect it.

"Is there something wrong with it?" Shadow asked, confused. Dina didn't look at him. Instead she stuck her fork into her mouth and began to chew.

"No," she responded, her mouth now stuffed with food. "It's just... just eggs?"

"What's wrong with that?!" Dina suddenly jumped and covered up her ears, beginning to sweat.

"She wasn't insulting your cooking, Shadster. Dina's just feeling extra hungry this morning. She was hoping for a larger portion." Shadow actually found himself longing for the usual nonsensical things that came out of the blue pineapple's mouth as he was forced to listen to Sonic's present reasoning and apologize to the frightened fan character before him.

"Hey, look, I'm sorry." When he didn't get anything but a sad look, Shadow went to the fridge. "What do you want with it, a chicken wing?"

Dina nodded passionately. "Yeah!"

Shadow's expression softened as he reached inside the fridge and pulled out a wing of chicken left over from a long ago trip to a restaurant whose theme revolves solely around poultry. As he did so, another voice called out excitedly from behind him.

"Oh! Oh! Can I have a bowl of broccoli cheddar soup with mine?" It was Honest. Shadow sighed loudly and spun around.

"Why can't you all just settle with what I cook for you and nothing extra?!" Shadow asked angrily.

Despite forcing Shadow to apologize to Dina for mistaking her disappointment in the amount of food for hypocriticalness, Sonic sided with him this time. " _I_ enjoy your food, Shadow." Shadow looked sharply in his direction. The azure speedster was resolutely eating his eggs at the end of the bar.

"I- Uh- well... Don't think that means anything coming from you!"

Sonic sipped from the can of Chaos Cola he had been drinking along with his breakfast. "No, of course not. 'Cause if it did mean something, that would mean you value my opinion. I know that's not true. Or at least, we can't let anyone else get that impression."

When the dark hedgehog felt his ears begin to burn red this time, it was in front of more people than earlier. This made him angry.

Shadow stomped over to Honest after closing the refrigerator somewhat harshly. He dropped the chicken wing on Dina's plate. "Honest, we need to talk." He pulled Honest out of the room by her tail. She had an amused expression as if what had just happened between the two hedgies was, for some odd reason, entertaining to her.

"Just now, what's up?"

Shadow had pulled Honest behind the stairs, and she was just smiling at him rather peculiarly. "I don't know."

"I know you're lying Honest; it's written all over your face."

"Oh, it is? That's good writing if you can see the face beyond it," Honest told him while gesturing to her still amused face with three fingers, acting as if that had been the answer for which he had been asking all this time.

"Sonic." Another glint of amusement appeared in Honest's eyes. "Why are you suddenly so interested in us?"

Honest's orange-tipped tail swished behind her. "Sonic's not immortal like you are. He gets impatient," Honest answered while shrugging. Then she suddenly looked angry. "Why can't you just let things happen? Why do you always ask for me to break things down for you? You really are dense." Then Honest made an inquisitive expression. "Or just unapologetically angelic. I'm pretty sure that describes you pretty well. That's a good one. The doctor would be proud." Shadow looked angrily confused. Honest snapped out of her thoughtful state and regarded him calmly. "If you're willing to admit you're angelic, or, well, innocent, then I'll be glad to explain to you why that's an adequate description of your character," she told him hopefully.

But he wasn't. Instead of admitting anything, Shadow simply moved her out of the way and stomped back into the kitchen.

"Of course he wouldn't admit it. Why does he even have a choice, though?" Honest asked herself before going back to finish her breakfast. "I mean, I'm the author. I should be able to force the characters to do whatever I want."

Sonic of course heard her. It wasn't like she had been trying, at least in the slightest, to be quiet while saying those things.

"Force us to do what? Is there something you need?"

"No, no," Honest said, fanning away his question. She hopped up into her stool again and finished what little bit of eggs she hadn't scarfed down already. Feeling the blue hedgehog's eyes still upon her, still curious, Honest spun to look at him. "Hey, can I ask you a question?"

"Sure," Sonic replied. His fingers drummed on the side of his head as he regarded her with a serious expression. Well... any expression of Sonic's that wasn't accompanied by a cheeky grin seemed serious-looking.

"Is there anything you're interested in seeing in my story soon?"

Sonic's eyes became rectangles as the ideas began to flood into his mind.

"Ooh! Nurse Shadster! And swimsuit day at the cafe!"

Honest's eyelids immediately dropped. "When this gets an animated adaptation... maybe."

"Yes!" Sonic exclaimed with a pump of his fist. I swear. After Forces, I'll never see fist bumps and pumps the same way ever again. Sonic really has a way with destroying all commonplace aspects of human life.

"But, what I'm trying to get at here is... What _characters_ are you most interested in me covering?" Honest tried to speak in the softest voice possible in order to stress the seriousness of her question.

Sonic pointed to his face in thought. "Hmm..." He stared up at the ceiling.

Once she had figured that Sonic would never find a way to answer that, Honest sighed. "I was thinking that maybe I should try to shift some of the focus over to you."

Sonic looked even more confused if that was possible. "To me? But-" He started laughing. "What is there to write about me?"

Honest just shrugged as if she had proposed that idea purely on a whim.

"I dunno. I just thought that you might have some things you want to resolve," Honest told him.

Sonic scratched his head. "Can you e- elaborate?"

"Well, you know," Honest replied, looking out into space. "You're an important character, and you're also a very dynamic character."

When Sonic seemed to be becoming lost, Honest swivelled his stool around so that he was facing towards the hallway. "But so is that guy."

There, standing outside the kitchen, was the Ultimate Lifeform. He was standing out there, holding his arms to his chest and staring at his shoes.

"He doesn't have a very good range of emotions," Sonic remarked with an apathetic expression.

"Yeah, tell me about it," Honest said, sounding as if she was also well aware of this fact. Honest shook her head fiercely as if she were very confused. "We're monsters for having fun with him for as long as we have. How are we going to help him?"

The blue hedgehog beside her just threw one of his legs over the other. "I don't know, Honest, but it's _your_ story."

Oh, so now he was throwing the blame on her. To be technical... "If it wasn't for you confusing him so much, I wouldn't be writing about it. It's your mistake."

"You're calling Shadow a mistake? Don't tell _him_ you said that." When Honest turned around and looked at him, Sonic explained. "Well, you know. Due to him being made in a lab, he might take that 'mistake' thing personally." Then he became all thoughtful again. "And don't think calling him a 'happy accident' will anger him any less."

Honest fixed her hair from when she had shaken her head earlier and crossed the room back towards him. She did laugh, though. "That wasn't what I was saying." Sonic laughed as well.

Honest beamed. "Alright, then! I said we were monsters, right? Monsters don't follow rules! So, do you have any more ideas?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for asking the other characters to give me ideas all the time. It may take some time to set up the next chapter, so please be patient.


	6. The Product of Boredom

This feeling was of a deep hatred -- No, a fear.

Lunaediesophobia.

"Uh, Ms. Vanilla? I think I might be sick. May I visit the nurse?"

"Nice try, Scourge. You're not sick. You just have a case of the Mondays." Honest told him.

She then tilted her head back to look at the green pineapple with an amused expression. However, Scourge was unable to give her any sort of look back due to his eyes being fearfully adhered to his desk.

Vanilla blinked curiously at Scourge's strange behavior. "I don't know, Honest. He doesn't look very well. Maybe you _should_ go to the nurse's office, Scourge." Honest sighed loudly. There really was nothing wrong with him. "And you should accompany him there just in case it's something serious that requires extra attention." Of course.

Honest slid out of her chair and pulled her bag off the back of it to take with her. It was close enough to the period's ending that they might not return. "Come on, _Scrooge_."

Just as they reached the door of the classroom and were about to walk out into the hallway, a voice halted them. "Wait!"

Also wielding her bag, Fiona the Fox came running towards them from the back of the room. Honest narrowed her eyes at the red-haired vulpine as Fiona widened hers. "I feel obligated to protect the king. I'm sure you understand."

Honest looked kind of lost as she tilted her head. "I... do. Yeah, you can come. Let's go." Honest smiled, turned, and left the room. Scourge just stood there utterly confused.

Fiona laughed and started to push him through the door. "Well, go on, your majesty! How am I going to guard you if you're just going to stand there dumbfounded for hours?"

The door shut on its own behind them.

After they had been walking a distance, the anti-Sonic twiddled his thumbs. "So, um, Honest... Where is the nurse's office exactly? I mean, if it's far away, I may not be able to make it in time before I get really sick or somethi-"

"Oh, come on, Scourge. You can't still be trying to keep up that act, are you? You're not sick; you're just trying to get out of class." Scourge looked like he doubted that, but then he looked shocked. "Besides, there's no actual nurse here to help you." The viridian pineapple's eyes became white disks and his mouth swung open.

Honest pushed open the slightly ajar door beside them, revealing a nearly deserted library with one shadowy figure sitting at the middle table.

During the events of {w/Sonic}, {w/Snow}, and {Forces Edition}, this was the only library, but with some help from supernatural beings found in the Sonic universe, Honest was able to create a much larger library that would suit the presence of a much larger cast of characters. Now, this original library was the perfect room for serious, quiet reading to take place. That's why this shadowy figure was here.

"Instead, I'm just going to use this time to goof off and visit my good pal Shadow in the library!"

Lifting his head from his totally engrossing book, the Ultimate Lifeform regarded the three with a judging look. "How did you know I was in here?"

Honest rushed over and stood beside his table. She tapped her temple with her index finger three times and excitedly explained. "I'm always aware of where you are! I'm constantly connected to you, you know."

Fiona and Scourge still stood at the entrance. Scourge still looked betrayed while Fiona appeared to be intrigued.

Sparkles seemed to spread from Honest's hands as she rested her elbows on the shadowy one's table, stars in her eyes. "It's 'cause you're special."

Scourge jumped when Fiona muffled a laugh with her hand. "What?"

"You're special, too, aren't you?" the scarlet fox asked, turning to him. If you've read my other story, _Is a Walled Garden Still Rosy?_ , you'll remember that Fiona called him special in chapter... 3? 4? Something like that.

Scourge thought a moment. "I-" He rubbed his arm nervously. "I think I am."

Fiona tilted her head at him and looked confused. Then, Scourge noticed Fiona was staring and turned away, laughing as he did so. "Wait, 'special'? What are we even talking about?"

Fiona shrugged and laughed as well. "Who knows?"

Suddenly, to turn this light-hearted atmosphere towards some productive and worthwhile thing, Honest spun around. "Let's all go make good use of Scourge's Monday!"

They all four went into the hallway. They had no idea where they were going, and that was a problem.

"Where do you think you're going?"

Honest, who was leading the pack, motioned for everyone behind her to cease what they were doing and look. At the end of the hall stood a pink porcupine with long, curly spines receiving a firm talking-to from Infinite.

"I- I'm just v- visiting the restroom..." sniffed the girl, Key the Porcupine.

"Is your teacher okay with you doing that?"

"Uh- of course!" Key fished a wooden pass with a chain on it out of one of her bag's pockets. "See, look! I have a hall pass!"

Infinite then promptly smacked the pass out of her hand with one of his own gloved ones. "That pass is out of date! Principal Mephiles replaced all the wooden passes this morning." Even from here, it was apparent that Key was trying hard not to cry.

Infinite crossed his arms and regarded the irresponsible irritation disapprovingly. "That hall pass is from a previous time you traversed this hall during class, isn't it? You hung onto it so that you could take an unreasonable amount of bathroom trips whenever you wanted to, is that right?"

Key was too afraid to reply. Instead she just shivered and looked at her hands as if she hadn't seen where the hall pass went after Infinite smacked it out of her hands and was still looking for it.

"That's such a shameless thing for you to attempt. I ought to turn you into Principal Mephiles for that." Key shook her head, pleading for him to reconsider. "Instead, I think I'd much rather leave you to feel ashamed of yourself for even attempting to trick one of your fellow students." Infinite rested a hand on his mask. "And most of all, I want you to imagine the Principal's hurt expression when he finds out you betrayed him like this."

As he moved away, Key started to cry and ran the opposite direction. She ran past Honest, Shadow, Fiona, and Scourge, bumping into Scourge and throwing him off balance on her way through. Fiona caught him and stood him up fortunately before the viridian monarch could topple over and call the cruel council member's attention to them.

"Wow," Shadow remarked in a low voice afterwards. "Was all of that really necessary?"

"None of that was even remotely called for," Fiona exclaimed crossly. "Why does he care so much for enforcing the principal's rules anyway? The class representatives are appointed by the students to protect them from rules that are unfair to them."

All four of them still were focusing on the place the two had been previously standing. Honest huffed, "It's just his nature. Come on. Let's go to the club room." The blond cat girl waved for them to follow her and continued down the hallway.

Entering the room, they found Amy sitting in front of a bookshelf, pulling game cases from a box and organizing them by year of release.

"Ooh!" Honest suddenly exclaimed, scaring the pink hedgehog and making her drop a game in a blue case back into the box. "I just remembered. Guess what I got for Christmas this year," she instructed the group.

"More GameCube games?" Scourge asked.

"Catnip?" Fiona guessed, not sure if she should care or not.

"Am I allowed to guess?" Shadow asked. He then looked behind him at Scourge. "I mean, I already know what you got, so-"

"A PS4 and Forces!"

Now was the time for everyone to look extremely confused.

"Wait. But {Forces Edition} was two stories ago, was it not? Why are you just now getting the game?"

Honest smiled. "Stories are released as things happen; not as I get things. I experienced Forces through long plays and watching cutscenes." She shrugged and walked over to the shelf on the back wall where Amy was.

The others followed her, Scourge crouching beside the pink hedgehog in front of the game shelf. "What do you have this period?" the viridian hedgehog asked.

"A study hall," Amy replied. "It's a long walk back, so I'd better leave now." The fuchsia pineapple stood up, leaving the box of game cases laying there on the floor. She waved to them and disappeared out the door.

"Study hall? Hey, Amy. Wait up." When the pink hedgy heard Honest, she stepped back in.

"Huh?"

"If study hall's all you have, why don't you stay here and skip with us?"

"'Skip'?" Amy repeated. She looked hurt. "Are you sure that's okay?"

"Sure! Study hall is purely for the student's benefit. If the student chooses not to benefit from it, that's their problem." Honest plopped down on a couch.

When Amy and the others still looked unsure, Honest smiled and added, "What can _possibly_ happen as a result?"

...

Everybody sat on benches besides Shadow whom walked back and forth in front of the others impatiently. Honest had pulled a page out of a magazine and was now folding it in her lap with a serious expression. Fiona was reading a magazine, and Scourge was admiring the artwork on the walls. Who had decorated the office all fancy? It couldn't have been Mephiles, could've it? Amy was watching Shadow with a concerned look.

Infinite walked out of a room on their left and turned to face the "skippers". "Principal Mephiles has determined that you will all have detention Monday and Wednesday."

Everyone sighed, the tension finally being broken. Amy glared over at Honest. "Nice going."

"Why not Tuesday? If you're gonna keep us for multiple days, why not group them together?" Shadow asked crossly.

"Because," Infinite said, cocking his head to one side. "If you'd let me finish, the Principal told me he'll be giving you homework to do that day." He kept walking towards the other side of the room.

Shadow gritted his teeth together. "Why doesn't your beloved principal come out here and tell that to my face?!" Infinite reached for the handle of the door leading out and turned it, holding out a hand to the door as it opened.

"It's because he's not even here. I had to contact him over the phone just now." Shadow looked over at Honest confusedly. "Anyway, you're all free to go back to class for the remainder of the day. But Monday..." Infinite's one eye lit up red for a second as he laughed in the most sinister of manners. "You'll all be under our surveillance."

The masked mongrel jammed something of a doorstop underneath the exit door and laughed darkly once more as he disappeared around the corner, right, and down the hall.

"Man, that dude's ominous," Scourge said, shivering dramatically and being the first to walk through the door leading out of the school office. Everyone else followed. That same ominous laugh was reverberating, echoing through the hallways. Scourge observed the front doors with a sneer. "I opt for skipping the rest of the day. Forget this."

Honest finished folding the magazine's page and now placed a paper bunny on the large desk in the office. She stepped outside once more to rejoin the group.

"Quick to anger today, are we?" Fiona said, wandering towards the green booger with her hands behind her back. "I can't recall a single other instance of that Infinite fellow making you this mad. It's not like this is the tenth time."

"He shouldn't be making me mad at all." Scourge was still regarding the front doors with a disgusted sneer as if they were doing something he didn't approve of. Then, quietly, he whispered, "We had a deal."

"What was that?"

"Oh, nothing!" Scourge exclaimed, very obviously lying. I mean, first of all saying that something is 'nothing' is always a telltale sign someone's lying. Second, Scourge had been angry before, and now he was smiling nervously and scratching the back of his neck. Plus, Fiona wasn't dumb, so she saw through this anyway. Even if he somehow _had_ managed to cover up his lie, she would've been able to see through it.

But even still... "Huh?" was all Fiona said, looking confused. After all, he was lying, but what about?

Apparently not hearing their whole conversation, Honest sprung between them. "But just think about how much time we've shaved off just doing that. In ten minutes, we can all go to lunch!"

"And repeat all that happened yesterday? I'm not sure I'm feeling up to it today," Shadow told Honest, scowling. "I might have to save someone from their own stupidity again today." Fiona and Scourge had no idea what he was talking about, so they just stood there dumbly.

Honest's eyes became all bright and sparkly like they were earlier. "Really? I thought you rather liked saving that blue pineapple's life yesterday. You were like--" Honest closed her eyes shut and put on what sounded like an imitation of a comedian as she falsely quoted Shadow. "'Choking on pizza crust? Water bottle!!'"

Fiona and Scourge were really confused then.

"Uh... I'm going to lunch early to wait in line!" Scourge exclaimed, his eyes greater than and less than signs. He took off down the hall Infinite traveled earlier, opposite from the entrance to the building. Fiona and the others followed him.  
  


\---

So, about the title of this chapter, this chapter was kind of foreshadowed in Chapter 11 of {Forces Edition}: "If people didn't take breaks every now and again, school would be too boring to stay at. And then those people would become... Scourge." Though, it's kind of ironic seeing as though Honest did what she said Scourge would do, switching things up at school and getting in trouble for it this time. It would've been alright if she had stopped with unnecessary travel, but instead she went and tried to skip class, which was a big no-no. And Scourge ended up being the good noodle here, but now she's dragging him to detention with her anyway. Bad vibes all around.

You can argue that she would've gotten away with it if she had tried it before there was a student council, but it was still skipping class. She should've used the time she spent walking to the club room to get everyone to their next classes early. That would've helped everyone out. Instead, she got them all put in detention. 

And now to foreshadow another chapter... This fatal error might prove to be fatal to one of her friends. Stay tuned! o.o; 

And... apparently the product of human world Honest's boredom is lots of illustrations. That's why it took so long to publish. Also, Wattpad's image importing is hideously buggy. Archive of Our Own's seems too easy when compared to this. By the way, if you follow me on there (or whatever they call it... I'm still very new to it), you can find some stories I won't post on here until extremely later. Stories without Honest. Because I like writing in general, I don't always want to recount real events. Sometimes I just wanna write something eloquent, realistic, or mature and that just can't be done with my other self butting in all the time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Talk to you when the next chapter gets published! (It and a few more are completely finished, but the ILLUSTRATIONS! UGHHH)


	7. Carnage Before Custody

Silver was in art this period. The exercise this week was to draw from random subjects, of their choice, around the school. The first thing to come to many of the students' minds was to head to the science classrooms to draw birds and ferrets, and that was a great idea. However, the birds scared Silver, and frankly the ferrets did, too. So, instead, Silver wanted to draw his most favorite subject in the world-- Shadow the Hedgehog.

Shadow was standing at the library's front desk, drilling holes into the side of his head with his drumming fingers. He was thinking long and hard about something while trying his darndest to focus on the pitter-patter of rain on the roof rather than on Rouge's mind numbing chattering as she checked in books, one after another, whilst standing on the opposite side of the desk.

Silver got a little too excited as he added the big globs of scarlet paint that were the result of Shadow drilling _literal_ holes into his head in his drawing, and the girl sitting at his table, a blue pika, looked at him for a moment with pure concern and terror on her face.

"...And so, I think I should do something about it." Rouge finished one of her thoughts just as the rain on the roof ceased.

"Huh?" Shadow finally quit drumming his fingers on the side of his skull and looked up at her.

"Were you listening at all?!" When the Ultimate Lifeform on the other side of the desk just continued to stare at her with the same blank expression, a vein formed on the government spy's forehead. "The next person to put an open book in the returns slot will get their fingers broken!"

"Don't do that, Rouge. There's gotta be some less bloody way to solve your problems," Shadow told her, sounding disappointed in the ivory white bat.

Rouge put her fists on her hips as she contemplated something. "Alright, then I'll- Hmm..."

Just then, a red recolor of Tails went to put an open book in the slot by Rouge. Jamming it through the nearly three inch diameter gap, he got all the pages creased and crumpled. Out of nowhere, he was hit upside his red noggin with a hardcover novel laying nearby. Well, I guess it wasn't _really_ out of nowhere, then.

"Rouge!!" Shadow sounded horrified. "I said _less_ bloody!"

"He's not bleeding," Rouge said simply. She dropped the book back onto the wooden surface of the desk with a "thump". Well, she wasn't wrong. The recolor she had hit was now lying on the burnt orange carpet of the library, the larger one by the way (read the last chapter), and seemed to have a rather large bruise slowly forming on his forehead. Surprisingly, though, there was no blood to be found.

"Well, yeah, but-"

"So what were you thinking about just now?"

Shadow jumped as he hadn't expected her to bring up his previous actions after all this time. The devious bat had her elbows on the wooden surface of the desk between them and her chin in her palms.

"It must've been pretty important for you to completely block out what I was telling you."

Shadow huffed. "Yeah. I've got detention next week."

When the coal-colored hedgy heard giggling coming from Rouge's direction, his head snapped back towards her. "What?"

"How'd you get detention? I'm surprised you let yourself get caught so easily. I mean, you've infiltrated the doctor's base how many times?"

Yet another huff. "I didn't _let_ myself get caught! I was following Honest around. It was her idea that we skip."

"You were skipping class?!" Rouge asked this as if it was ridiculous what he had done.

"Wait... You think that's uncharacteristic of me?"

The pause was so strong here that Shadow could almost feel the next three dots hanging in the air above them.

...

"Yeah. I'm sorry to say this, but you're a real stickler when it comes to the rules."

Shadow's eyes widened, but he didn't say anything.

Rouge put a finger to her lips in thought. "Though, I guess, in this situation, that would make you a teacher's pet type."

Shadow put his palms to his cheeks, putting pressure on them. It looked like he was trying to cave his head in on both sides. Ouch.

Rouge cocked her head to one side. "You okay?"

"I'm fine," came Shadow's much-too-quick reply. He turned away as if to make some sort of escape, only to be met with the smiling face of his fancanon time-travelling son from the future.

"Do you wanna see my drawing of you?"

Shadow looked kind of confused and startled for a second. He nodded his head. Silver flipped his large sheet of watercolor paper around so that Shadow could see the graphite drawing of himself the fluffy time-traveller had drawn. He gasped.

It was a rather surrealist, pin-up style portrait of the Ultimate Lifeform, complete with heavily contrasting, suspense-forming lighting in the form of heavy pencil strokes running from the subject to the edges of the paper. Alongside the graphite, he had also used some thick, red acrylic paint.

"It's-" Silver's eyes widened to the size of basketballs. Now, wait before you comment something along the lines of "Hey, wait! Basketballs are an unrealistic size for eyes to grow to!". We're talking about Sonic eyes here, remember?

Judging by the way Shadow seemed so taken aback just now, Silver decided that what he would be saying next will be something like "It's beautiful!". So, he braced for just such an explanation to be thrust his way, striking a confident-looking pose.

"... Disgusting!"

Silver's fern deflated atop his head. "Huh? Why?" He looked very disappointed.

"Is that... blood? Coming from my head?"

Silver took another look at his drawing as if he had forgotten what his own artwork looked like. "Yeah. I know it wasn't there in reality, but I thought it needed it." When Shadow didn't look convinced, Silver pouted. "Um, artistic expression and all that." He followed his statement with a nervous chuckle.

Shadow saw how uncomfortable Silver looked, so he tried his best to put on an approving smile as he patted the younger hedgehog's shoulder. "Oh! Don't take that as me dissing your hard work! So what your artwork has some questionable themes? It's still really impressive!"

Silver's fern was seemingly reinflated at that, and the usual flowers began to dance around him once more. "Really? Thank you so much! I just couldn't help myself. You really did look like you were drilling holes into your head earlier, though!" With that, Silver took his drawing up into a neat roll and stuck it under his arm as he skipped off, his boots making a soft thump as they came in contact with the carpeted library floor as he did so.

The growl that had first commenced when Silver brought up the hole-drilling bit now began only just then to make itself loud enough to be noticable in Shadow's throat once he had left. After all, the only one left with him now was Rouge, and it was very important, at least to Shadow, that she was aware of his annoyance as she then jumped at the opportunity presented to her.

"Drilling-- Oh, yeah, the finger tapping! Why were you thinking that hardly about detention?"

"Because," Shadow said rather loudly. "Infinite is in charge of overseeing it, and I was contemplating how I should use that opportunity to bring his life to a sudden end."

Rouge knew instantly that wasn't the answer. She walked to the other side of the librarian's desk and over to Shadow so he didn't have to yell 'cause frankly, Shadow's voice actor couldn't actually be that loud due to how difficult it was to keep that voice up while shouting.

The bat spy crossed her arms, showing him with that action that she wanted him to see her discontentment with his answer. "That's not it. You don't want to be violent when you don't have to. I'm unsure of the exact context of any of those quotes, but I'm pretty sure you've said many times in your game that you have no intentions of fighting, going into boss fights where you're forced to partake in some amount of violence."

Shadow sighed, giving up. "That doesn't mean I'm a pacifist, but alright. I'm worried because the whole process seems very shady." Rouge looked afraid for him. Shadow nodded, acknowledging the unspoken elements of their conversation.

"I mean, Mephiles told Honest and I in person this morning to meet in the school theater sometime before the first bell. I thought that we were going to have detention in a small classroom, or the ISS room, or maybe even one of the libraries. Definitely not the _theater_. What's he going to do? Put on some morbid play for us?" Shadow shivered. Rouge looked more amused now for some reason. She couldn't have thought his paranoia funny, right?

"This is not funny, Rouge. I'm serious! This is a real concern of mine."

"I think you're way overthinking this. You're just going to sit in there and work on homework or something."

"But-!" Shadow was about to object to her proposal, but he stopped himself short, filling one cheek with air in annoyance. Apparently, Rouge forgot that this was Mephiles they were talking about as their principal. Did Rouge forget who _she_ was for a moment? She was talking as if she expected something normal and boring to happen to them of all people. In a literary work such as this.

It was at this time that the bell chose to ring, signalling the end of fourth period. Next up on Shadow's schedule was fifth period. Honest and him had art together. Well, technically Shadow had Art III and Honest had AP Art, so they didn't have the same class. However, they _did_ have their classes in the same room, so Shadow and Honest liked to walk together.

Rouge and him walked out of the building together and down the sidewalk a ways, but they split up outside, each heading down different paths at an intersection.

Shadow found Honest standing in the shade, out of the rain, under a concrete overhang outside the cafeteria. The art building was behind the cafeteria, so this was where she liked to wait for him. It was sort of a halfway mark.

The cloud cover was very thick, making the whole school yard shaded over and gloomy. Of course, Sonic characters tended to be very colorful, so it wasn't entirely dreary-looking all the time. With Honest's desaturated color palette, however, she blended in fairly well. Shadow didn't have too much trouble spotting her, though, having seen her almost instantly after turning the corner.

Everyone around them looked in a hurry to get wherever they were going. Heads down, raincoats five times larger than they were-- they walked in groups mostly, though, and there was often laughter shared between them. Honest stood there silently, resting her folded arms on a railing. She was peering with interest at the sky as if seeing it for the first time-- smelling the roses. 

That was like the only thing Shadow was guaranteed to do in his off-time; his time off definitely wasn't spent infiltrating the doctor's base or impersonating Sonic. Honest was looking so intrigued at something Shadow thought would only intrigue himself. This narrow minded thought came to Shadow: _Maybe we_ are _alike._

__

At this, Honest turned to him, her expression brightening. That "intrigued" expression, as Shadow had been calling it, melted away pretty instantaneously. In its place was left that blindingly bright expression Honest usually had. As if she knew something that the whole world would never completely grasp. Something that made her endlessly happy. Not to go into a "meaning of life" tangent or anything, though. There were things to do.

"Shadow! You're here! Now, let's go to class!" She immediately went for his arm, like an eager dog walker going for a dog's leash. And, like a dog, Shadow let Honest drag him towards the building. Pit bull-like scowl and everything.

Honest took a break from tugging Shadow along to open the front door of the art building. Shadow watched her struggle with getting it over the mat. That was a problem for anyone wanting to get in or out. For a building that contained several design classes, it had very poor design.

"Uh, Honest? What were you thinking about earlier? You were staring at the sky," Shadow asked her, crossing his arms. The door was now stuck somewhere in the middle of the rug. Honest turned around, leaving the door propped open like this.

"Monday and Wednesday's detention. What else? I've never written something like that before," she told him. She grasped the edge of the door and pulled as hard as she could. "Okay, now it's severely stuck." The blond cat girl turned around with a pout. "Let's just go before anyone gets mad at us."

Honest slipped through the gap first and Shadow teleported in. It wasn't too big a waste of chaos energy to teleport a foot or two, don't worry. However, Honest was still unsure that he was even teleporting. It seemed that he teleported in the games, but in reality he was just pausing and unpausing time, right? That was the most confusing thing to her.

"Aren't you afraid of what Mephiles or Infinite might do?" Shadow asked.

Honest laughed. They were walking down the hallway as slow as they could. They were in no real danger of showing up late. The teacher herself usually entered the classroom five or even ten minutes past the bell. And there were no bells in this building anyway. At least, any that worked. People just checked their watches or the clock. Or, well, their phones. It _was_ the 21st century after all... or was it the 3200s like the comics since this is {Comic Edition}? "Remember the end of part 3 of the ghost hunting chapters of {w/Rosy}?"

Shadow looked confused. "Uh, yeah, I guess."

"Mephiles has no power, and he knows it. So, I don't think we should have anything to worry about. If he truly is an intellectual like he claims to be, he wouldn't just keep attacking us and expecting that to yield different results. That would be foolish."

"Yeah," Shadow agreed, attempting to convince himself she was right. "Don't they say that's a sign of insanity?"

"Yup!" Honest exclaimed, smiling and turning back at him, raising her index finger in front of her face. "That _is_ what they say. Of course... who are 'they'?" She looked dumbfounded for a moment, staring at the finger she had raised. When Shadow shrugged, Honest did, too. She smiled and laughed again, turning back around just to be faced with the disapproving frown of Infinite. He was standing there in the doorway of the art room.

"Why are you two laughing and having fun in the hallway?"

Shadow sent an equally disapproving frown back his way.

"Oh, so now there's a law against fun, too?" The two stared each other down. Honest put herself between them.

"Oh! Hey, Infy!" Honest told the masked mongrel before them, swishing her tail side to side excitedly. That was a deliberate thing she did whenever she was trying to appear cheery. It wasn't like that was an unconscious tail-swishing or anything. Only dogs move their tail when they're happy.

"Hey, Honest," Infinite said. He still sounded angry even as he greeted her. Then, he just talked through her. Apparently having something between him and Shadow prevented them from staring at each other, but it didn't prevent them from talking to each other. "There's only a law against it when you're doing it, Shadow the Hedgehog." Honest turned around to look at Shadow. Then Infinite walked around her.

"Well, that's not very impartial," Shadow told him, radiating hatred.

Honest tilted her head to the side. Okay, so Infinite had a grudge against Shadow, and that made Shadow spiteful just because? Or was Shadow angry because Infinite didn't forgive him? Then something else dawned on her. Had Infinite just called her by her name instead of just "Cat"? Honest looked over at Infinite curiously. Him and Shadow were still having an old West standoff behind her. No words were exchanged; just looks. Honest was pretty sure she could hear a distant flute as well.

This was all getting very tiring. Honest regarded them both extra boredly. Shadow seemed to get the message and gave her an angry yet knowing glare with those seemingly bottomless red eyes of his. "He can't be helped."

As he moved to the now unobstructed art room door, Infinite's much more steely, electric gaze bore into him. Honest swore to get around to helping him eventually, but there were so many comic characters whose needs had to be put before his. Though, according to Shadow, "he can't be helped".

Not noticing any sign of Infinite following them, Honest assumed he was continuing to seethe inches from the door. He was a coward. Definitely.

Honest and Shadow sat at their usual table and got to work creating something of value from rather invaluable things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for this taking a while. The art is the most time-consuming part. I've been doing so much more planning than actual writing lately, so the chapters after this one are all unfinished but fully planned out.


	8. The Death of Sonic the Hedgehog Part 1

It was now Monday and, having not been given any directions whatsoever, Honest and Shadow decided their wisest plan of action was to just head to school and go straight to the theater once there. However, there was one implication for which they hadn't planned.

Honest nodded in complete understanding. "So that's our plan," she said finally, a nail-in-the-coffin of sorts for their conversation.

And, just like that, the one implication walked into the room sporting an algebra textbook under one of his arms. "What're you guys discussing over here?"

Sonic "Implication" the Hedgehog had said "discussing" as if it had been something else entirely, and he was only _calling_ it a discussion.

"Just that. Discussing. But it's done now," Honest told him. She then turned to the edgy hedgy beside her with a confused look on her face. "You did tell him, right? About the detention?"

"The what?" Why did Sonic look excited after hearing that?

"Why do you look so excited about detention of all things?" Shadow asked in a very condescending way. Not how Honest would've said it, but whatever. However, Sonic didn't look too offended.

That should've been a question not needing an answer, a rhetorical question, but there was too much attention being drawn to Sonic, so he was forced to say something. "I just like knowing things I shouldn't necessarily know."

"That's stupid."

Honest had to agree with Shadow. "Yeah, that's pretty dumb."

Sonic was about to go into a "my spirit is eternally broken" mode, but was brought back when he realized what was happening. "Oh, you're just calling what I said dumb because you don't like what that implies," Sonic told them, smiling as if he had just solved some age-old question. "I see."

Honest and Shadow looked at each other incredulously before Shadow scoffed loudly and looked away. "And you're slow, too."

"I am? Wow. I learn new things about myself every day."

Honest tilted her head in a confused manner towards Shadow then. He was just egging him on now, wasn't he? It wasn't possible to write a Sonic character off as a stereotype. Especially Shadow. But what was his reasoning? The Honest thing to do was to ask him right then, but the polite thing to do was to ask him in private. How come the Honest thing and the polite thing couldn't be the same thing? Honest wanted to be polite. She sighed solemnly.

"Are you egging him on?" Shadow acted as if he hadn't registered her question at all, his face unchanged. "Or are you just being unreasonably cross as per usual?"

"Why do you feel the need to spoil the fun? Some things just shouldn't be remarked upon," he said finally. Now Honest was even more confused. Her eyes were slightly widened in bewilderment when Sonic pulled her close while laughing, a complete contrast to Shadow's demeanor right then. Shadow felt so distant. It was as if he was just a one-dimensional image hanging in midair.

"Personally, I wish he was just being cross, but I think you may have been right with that first one."

More thoughts flew through Honest's head, but she prioritized them quickly. "Wait, you would rather Shadow be shallow?"

Shadow became all prickly. "What are you idiots even talking about? How come you guys know more than I do about what I'm doing?"

Honest laughed. "Oh! Not shallow, innocent! But seriously, why are you encouraging behavior you despise?"

"We're going to be late for detention. Come on." Shadow began to stomp towards the door, dodging the question. He was awfully good at that. Anyways, they _were_ going to be late if they didn't go right then. So they did.

Once at school, Honest immediately led him to the school theater. She really wasn't too scared, was she? On the other hand, Shadow was using up every little bit of time he had before they arrived just to convince himself that what Rouge had said yesterday was right. He was just being unnecessarily paranoid. He was fretting for absolutely no reason.

However, once the hedgehog and cat had entered the theater and began walking down through the center of the aisles, the sight of some sort of play being set up onstage brought all of his fear and anxiety rushing back.

Mephiles was appearing and disappearing behind the curtains, probably working to set this all up. Strangely enough, he could also see Sonic onstage. He was standing to one side of the set and looking pretty lost. However, once he caught sight of them approaching, he suddenly looked to have found his way, his entire countenance brightening as he rushed to the edge of the stage to meet them.

Honest recognized the others who had been caught skipping class sitting in the front row of seats-- Fiona, Amy, and Scourge. Amy was looking pretty grave, obviously still upset that Honest had gotten her into this mess. Scourge seemed either extremely relaxed or just very bored. Fiona seemed to be waiting patiently, no, eagerly. She was just interested in what was going on.

Sonic plopped down on the edge of the stage, his feet dangling. When the two approached him, he rested on his hands and glanced down at them.

"When Infinite told me Mephiles would give me extra credit if I showed up to help out in detention, I knew it had to be your guys'. I just wonder what I'm doing."

"Speaking of Infinite, where is he?" Shadow asked.

"Up there." Sonic pointed above and behind them. There, in a small room with a cutout for a window, stood said jackal, messing with a large spotlight. Shadow was still turned around watching Infinite when Sonic smiled at the back of his head and asked, "So, what did you guys do to deserve detention?"

"We were caught skipping class by Infinite," Honest told him, turning around quickly.

"Oh, really?" Sonic exclaimed. "I knew that bad-kid side of you would come out eventually."

Shadow "pft"ed and spun to face him. "Oh, please. Don't you remember when I tried to destroy the world in Boom?"

"Oh, yeah, Eggman the Video Game Part Two," Honest said, laughing. "I'm still trying to wrap my head around those last few episodes."

"'Still?!' You know how long ago that was?" Sonic asked, laughing obnoxiously.

Shadow rolled his eyes at their mutual ability to draw a smile from each other at the most unfitting of times. He pointed at something across the stage. "Hey. I think Mephiles is going to say something."

Turning around, both Sonic and Honest noticed said demonic hedgy making his way towards the front of the stage. Sonic rushed to get back where he was. Over his shoulder, he called to them, "Mephiles told me to stand over here! See you when the play starts."

The play. Shadow knew Mephiles was going to have them watch a morbid play he performed for them. But what was _Sonic's_ role in it?

Shadow and Honest went to sit where the others were sitting. Mephiles came to the edge of the stage in front of them. After regarding them all with what Shadow assumed was a serious expression (he kind of always had the same expression what with his lack of a mouth), he explained what was going on.

"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to detention," the demonic hedgy announced as if he were addressing the audience of a real play. Honest rolled her eyes as obnoxiously as possible. Despite this, Mephiles still didn't seem to understand how little they really cared as he continued. "It is my plan that we are going to perform one of my most favorite pieces, a classic tragedy-" He seemed to laugh rather softly as he said this. " _The Death of Sonic the Hedgehog_."

The breath hitched in many of their throats. Sonic was the only person who spoke. He was sweating profusely. "The death of 'me'?"

_It_ is _a morbid play_ , Shadow thought.

Mephiles, with a quick movement of his fingers, fished a stapled together, thin paper booklet out of his spines, as well as a small remote. "And this is the definitive version," he added. "None of that 'true love' jazz included." He then pressed a button on the remote and a metal and cylindrical cage was lowered down around Sonic.

Shadow just blew a puff of air and shifted his attention away from the stage and back to Honest. "At what point can I call this unlawful and put an end to this?" he asked.

"Well..." Honest said. Mephiles flipped through his booklet and began pointing to people, instructing them on where to go and what to do. Honest tapped her chin. "As soon as you're sure Sonic is in danger. Death is usually one of the last things to happen in a tragedy. So until then, let's just play along. Perhaps that is all it is."

Although he would very much rather spindash the demon back into oblivion right then and there, the response Shadow had gotten from Rouge last week forced him to have to agree with Honest.

Soundlessly, a figure floated up beside them. "Are you both ready to receive your lines?"

Shadow and Honest both jumped in unison. Mephiles just looked at them with half-lidded eyes. He was used to people jumping in fright when he spoke to them.

"We all need to do our parts if this play is to be a success," Mephiles was saying as he dropped stapled pages of paper into their hands. "Wednesday we will be performing in front of the whole school. I will not have you making a fool out of me at the height of my playwriting career."

Career? Since when did he have one of those? Honest formed a face full of confusion. He was the principal, but what he had established in this school was more of a military occupation than a management position...

Shadow was quickly flipping through the script in no time. When Mephiles saw this, his eyes opened wide. The demon's hand then shot out, grabbing Shadow's wrist and holding it in place so that he could no longer use his hand to flip through the pages of printer paper. Shadow gritted his teeth. "H-Hey! That hurts!"

It really did look like Mephiles was hurting him, seeing as though he was gripping him so strongly with only two fingers. "Uh, stop that!" was all Honest felt she could say.

Mephiles didn't act as if he had heard her. Instead, he kept a steady stare on Shadow as he explained. "Please do not flip through until the end. I want the ending to be a surprise." He kept his grip until the doors to the theater flew open and a small, silver shape began to make its way towards them through the center aisle.

"Mephiles! I- I'm so sorry, I-" It was Silver. He was carrying what looked like a large, brown bag under one arm. Despite the bag's size, its contents seemed to be very light due to Silver not seeming to be encumbered at all by his cargo. Suddenly it was as if the demon's commanding attitude just now had melted away.

"Sil- uh, Silver! You're just in time, actually..."

Silver didn't bother navigating to the chairs where the others were sitting, or even the stairs to get up on stage. Instead, he jumped to a rather unrealistic height in order to land atop the stage and stand in front of Mephiles.

Honest tilted her head as the silver hedgy bowed his. "I'm so sorry I'm late! Please don't extend my sentence!!"

"Sentence"? What did he think this was, prison? Then, Shadow's eyes widened in fear. What if he knew something they didn't?!

"Oh-" Honest fought to turn around with Shadow grasping her shoulders while attempting to hide behind her. "Stop it, Shadow. You're going to embarrass yourself."

Mephiles heard her and turned away from Silver a moment to observe the cowering Ultimate Lifeform. A dark purple cloud began to hover around him as he bowed his head.

"Oh, my. The negative energy radiating from that one is just delightful, isn't it?"

Then, everyone looked at where he was looking. Honest rolled her eyes and puffed out her cheek.

"What did I tell you?" she asked, sounding ashamed.

Sonic's and Silver's expressions were very comparable right now.

"Shadow..." Sonic whispered. Sonic hated to have to rely on Shadow to rescue him, and seeing him right now only added to it. He was really going to... you know..., wasn't he? But... Watching Shadow a little longer... there was still so much he hadn't seen!!

What usually was it that caused Shadow to spring into action?

Of course Honest had to be right about him embarrassing himself. But wasn't the fear of having a less-than-ultimate image what usually caused him to act?

Maybe it didn't cause him to "spring into action", but it did usually earn _some_ sort of reaction from him. His image was definitely very important to him. It was all he had, well, that's at least what he thought. It took someone on the outside to motivate him to do something _despite_ what people think of him, ie., Rouge in '06. This detail about Shadow has existed for a while, actually...

_Shadow looked behind him at Honest solemnly- until he realized she was staring right back. When she saw him turn and look at her, her eyes lit up. "Shadow-kun!" Honest exclaimed, her voice echoing in the crowded cafeteria._

_Everyone looked at them, and some of them snickered. Shadow felt his ears light up bright red. He rose from his seat and stomped over to the table Honest and the Boom crew were sitting at._

_Sticks stood up as soon as he drew near. "Hey! You're not allowed to sit here!"_

_"I don't want to sit here," Shadow replied through gritted teeth. "I want Honest back." He latched onto the back of_ _Honest's_ _collar and proceeded to drag her to the table._

_"Help," Honest said, barely audible. It was a strange scene for a moment, until Shadow's super strength faded. Honest finally got Shadow to let go of her. Shadow then took one glance at her, then one glance at the crowd around them, then he gave up and walked to his seat._

_The crowd around them began to dissipate. Honest scrambled to her feet before following Shadow to the table, her tail flying behind her like a ribbon._

_"Honest, what did I say about calling me that in public?" Shadow said to her as they got settled at their normal table._

_"I'm so, so sorry! I just- it was the first thing I thought of to say!" Honest apologized frantically, waving her hands about. Shadow looked over at her and sighed._ (Chapter 15 of {w/Sonic})

Well, he could always make it worse.

"Some Ultimate Lifeform you are!" he suddenly exclaimed. Shadow's head snapped to face him and those glowing red eyes seemed to activate.

Sonic had both his arms and head stuck through the bars on his confinement as he tried to rile Shadow up even more. "How can you ever possibly expect to rescue me if you're cowering in terror like that?"

Shadow squinted hard at him. "What makes you think I was planning on saving you?"

Sonic returned his squint then turned his nose up at him. "Since you planned to 'put an end to this', but were halted by Honest."

Sonic wasn't sure if Shadow knew this, but a look of surprise began to form on his face. Then Honest stepped in front of him again.

"Don't worry, Sonic! We'll figure something out- Huh?"

Shadow pulled her back before Mephiles accidentally stepped on her fingers which were gripping the wooden stage in front of her. In her rush to get between him and Sonic, Honest had gotten too close to the stage. The demonic hedgy occupying it put his hands on his knees and crouched down to look at the person whom he had nearly injured. "Oh! I'm sorry. You were saying something about ruining my first attempt at a playwriting career, were you not?"

Honest turned white and seemed to be about to faint.

Shadow wasn't scared of Mephiles. Or maybe he was. Just a little bit. Anyhow, there was no way he was going to let that monster get away with anything just because he was scared. It wasn't what he was trying to do specifically, it was the principle.

Detention wasn't a prison sentence. How immature would he be if he thought that? No, this was just an event organized by a madman. Though, Shadow wasn't exactly sure which theory was more frightening. A seemingly misplaced voice awakened him from his thoughts.

"Back in the No Zone prison, there was always some wacko thing like this done with the prisoners. The others would spend all week planning how they would take advantage of it to escape, though _I_ never bothered. Didn't they ever think that maybe the warden had already planned for all that?"

The speaker was Scourge. Him, Fiona, and Amy were sitting in the first row of seats.

"Yeah, but they were all degenerates. How did you think they got in prison?" That was Fiona.

Shadow stole a glance at those two, wondering how they could be so calm. Oh, right. They were probably very familiar with this type of setup. However, Amy didn't look so sure of herself. She kept reaching for some unseen thing behind her back, probably her hammer, and watching their whole situation closely.

Oh, yeah. Amy always had her hammer on her. That meant that, even in the middle of a big scene in the play, she could whip out her hammer and smash Mephiles at any time to end this thing. Shadow would have to remember that.

But why couldn't they read the last page of their scripts? They needed to. "Uh, Mephiles, sir?"

The demon's eyes smiled to make up for his lack of a mouth. "Oh, Shadow. What's up?"

What's up is right. His ability to change tone was surprising. When exactly did he learn to do that?

"About our scripts... isn't it important that we read the last page? We need to memorize those lines as well, right?"

"Well, no, actually. Once you get to that point, it should become painfully obvious what you must do."

What did _that_ mean?!

"But just so you're not all tempted... Silver?"

" Y-Yes, Mephy?" Silver asked. Mephiles didn't respond with words. He simply gestured to the "prisoners". "Oh," Silver said, his eyes greater-than and lesser-than signs.

Suddenly the last pages of all their scripts were ripped out by a cerulean glow. The pages gathered in Silver's outstretched hand. Mephiles turned to walk away.

"Put them in your bag." Silver nodded seriously and sat down, unzipping the brown bag he had been carrying and stuffing the pages inside.

"I have given you all the rest of today and tomorrow to memorize and practice your scripts. I expect you in here by the first bell prepared to act."

Suddenly they were all engulfed in an extremely bright light.

"Hey!! What gives?" Shadow heard Amy yell.

"Where's that light-" Shadow began.

"Sorry!" He was cut off. The light was cut as well, and they all turned in the direction of the voice. "I was just testing it." Infinite was still fumbling with the spotlight above the stage. He looked straight down. "Uh, Mephiles? Do you think we have filters in the room below the stage?"

Mephiles sighed loudly. "I'll go check..."

Mephiles floated to the back of the stage. "Look over the scripts while I'm gone."

And that's what they did. Even Silver got his copy of the script and started studying it. Eventually Mephiles and Infinite returned to give them permission to go to lunch, and to lunch they went.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A very long chapter to make up for my taking such a long break (is that grammar?). I've been uploading my stories to FanFiction starting with {w/Sonic} and working my way to modern times. However, my internet has recently taken an extended vacation, so I sincerely apologize on its behalf.
> 
> Actually, Wattpad mobile is more stable than the desktop site when it comes to publishing new parts, so I'm actually better off in that regard. And I got a tablet, so that has made things a bit easier as well. It supports 720p videos. ^u^ Unlike my terrible phone. T_T
> 
> RANT ALERT (If you have better things to do, you can skip everything past this point)
> 
> It's funny, but I've been realizing my own plot this whole story. I remember saying something in {w/Rosy} about how I wanted to bring all the stories together in {Comic Editon} so that I could continue to build off of one point instead of several, but... I haven't been really doing anything to accomplish that. At least, not myself. I just kind of, write, and things come together all by themselves. Sometimes even a little faster than just "when I write", like it's working in the background. 
> 
> It's kind of weird, but very handy. Especially since the next plot I introduce (though it was kind of already introduced, again, by itself), needs to be chronological. I thought that time didn't really move in this story, but it sort of does. The characters don't graduate, for instance, but school life does end (well, temporarily). I won't spoil anything, though. 
> 
> Scourge and Honest are kind of connected/related for some reason. It's like a tool used to measure time. This is something that I realized while figuring out the classes and schedules of the supporting characters in {w/Rosy} and {Forces Edition}. Scourge and Honest are very much equal in my story, which may seem strange seeing as though Honest is me, the author, and Scourge is just another Sonic character. However, writing IWGSR really helped explain this to me, and hopefully reading it will explain it to you.
> 
> We're working together, and though Shadow's going to argue that we can't completely trust him, remember that I can exert the force necessary to keep him in-check if needed.
> 
> But it won't be. He doesn't have to fear me, but he has to and does respect me.
> 
> I guess we can't trust him, but I can see it before it happens. And I forgive him.
> 
> Rant over. ^w^


End file.
